The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Myron Keller sat on the borrowed bed, and pulled out his phone to see that it was four in the morning. He looked around the room for a minute and tried to think how it would be a nice enough place stay in if it were a B and B and he had a girl and this was another world. But right now all he could do was think about everything in the night that had passed.

Tomorrow was his Uncle Nate’s funeral. Well, cousin Nate, but…still. He would hold the chalice or that dish and say, “Body of Christ, Blood of Christ,” while half his family came to him.

And they were all werewolves. And so was he.

He ran his hands along his jeans and felt the disk. He pulled it out, opening the case.

“The pills,” Myron said.

He turned on the phone, was glad to see that vampires had Internet service. Of course they did. Everyone does these days. Reading the label for the disk of pills, he typed in aconitum lycoctonum.

“Aconite,” Myron murmured as the article came up. “A northern European root often used for poison, often called… wolfsbane.”

Myron thought of tossing the pills against the wall, and then thought that was some dramatic shit that happened in movies along with people who were so overcome with grief that they smashed thousand dollar laptops with all of their data on them.

He heard his door open a little and was about to say something to Dan when he saw it was Anne, the pretty tea color haired woman—um, vampire—and she stepped across the room and sat down. She was in a nightgown or dress of red and yellow paisleys, and her head was wrapped in a scarf. She looked like the 1970s.

“I remember the first time I woke to a different life,” she said, “when I was no longer the human I had been, but what I am now. Sunny did that. I had been attacked by men who were about to kill me. He killed one, and then the rest scattered. He gave me life. He taught me everything. And then, one night, I fought. I fought the men who had attacked me, who nearly killed me. I killed them,” she said. “I did things I never thought I could, felt a strength I never knew I had. No one told me how terrified I would be by it, this change.”

Myron nodded.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” she said. “But in all of it, when you feel that strength in you, when you know you are not what you thought you were, but more, more savage, more capable of doing what you never thought you could, there is another feeling.”

“Pleasure,” Myron said, quietly.

“When I killed that man,” Myron confessed. “when I broke his back, it felt good. I wanted to do it again. I want to do it again. That’s not me.”

He shook his head.

“But it is you,” Anne said. “It always was. Cain killed Abel, but then he built the first city and became the father of all mankind. They say that we are all torn between Cain and Abel, but I don’t believe that. All of us here bear the mark of Cain.”

“None of this would have happened if not for me,”Sunny said

“How do you figure?” Kruinh was sitting in the great chair in a bedroom that was easily as large as Myron’s loft.

Sunny, who was still furiously beating a punching bag incongruously hanging from the ceiling stopped and turned, pushing his blond hair out of his face.

“It was me who said take Levy to Dan’s place, he’ll be safer there. But instead Dan almost got killed. This is all on me.”

“Maybe it’s a little on you,” Kruinh allowed, holding out his hand and tipping it, “but I wouldn’t be so quick to put everything on you. You could not have known that Evangeline misread the situation. Besides, if tonight had not happened the way it did then we would still be waiting for Evangeline to make a move, and she might have made it more intelligently. Myron would not know what he is, and we would not know about Levy. Everything that happened is a good thing.”

“But still.”

Kruinh got up. He touched Sunny on the wrist.

“You know what I like about you, Alexander?’

“My chest and my golden smile.”

“They doesn’t hurt,” Kruinh agreed. “But everyone in this house is one of my children, and I love them. I do. But you, very quickly I knew you were a companion. My companion.”

“Was this before or after you tried to kill me?”

“If I’d really wanted you dead, you would have been dead.”

“So,” Sunny said, “you just really wanted me to jump around on fire for a while in the middle of broad daylight, but not kill me?”

“It was the principal of the thing, and I hope you’re not still holding it against me.”

Sunny smiled and said, “I am actually not holding it against you at all. But Chris—”

“I’ll tell him myself. Evangeline would have killed him along with the rest of us. She had to go. She’s two hundred years overdue. It was only a matter of time and he knew we’d kill her in the end. I will not mention Dan’s name. It was my order.”

“Dan might feel guilty and tell it himself. In a very bad way,” Sunny said. “I worry—”

“You,” Kruinh said, “are forbidden from worrying about another blessed thing. It’s almost morning.”

Sunny tried to look serious. He tried so hard they both laughed, and then he turned to the large bed before the drawn curtains.

“You saying it’s time to go to bed?”

“I need to go to bed,” Kruinh said wearily.

Sunny took off his gloves and took Kruinh’s hand. “I need to go to bed too, and not because I’m so sleepy.”

As Sunny pulled off his tee shirt, and came to the bed he said, “Levy’s gonna ask what a catamite is. You know that right?”

“Come here,” Laurie murmured, pulling Dan to him

In the dark, as the invisible sun rose beyond thick curtains,he kept Dan wrapped in his arms.

Dan pressed the back of his feet into Laurie’s and pulled Laurie’s arms tighter around him.

“Sometimes I think this is all I ever really wanted from you,” Dan said.

Laurie placed his chin on the top of Dan’s head.

“Why are you always giving me grief then?”

He tickled him and Dan laughed, “Stop!”

“Why are you giving me grief all the time?” Laurie demanded, tickling him quickly again, Dan turned around and swatted him.

“Careful now,” Laurie said, “you gave me some of your blood, so I’m strong now too.”

“I gave you some of everything,” Dan said. “And while we’re at it, don’t ask me why I give you so much grief and I won’t ask you why you insist on being a stick in the mud.”

“Really?” Laurie demanded, thumping his own chest. “After last night, you’re going to call me a stick in the mud? After this morning?”

Dan pushed his face into the pillow and pretended to groan.

Laurie gently placed himself on Dan’s back and gripped him around his chest.

“I’m not going to let you go until you look at me. I’m just going to lie on top of you forever until you say something.”

“You know that’s actually fine with me,” Dan murmured to the pillow.

Then he said, “You know, the first time I met you, when I was new? I remember I was terrified of you.”

“Well, that was only appropriate.” Laurie grinned.

“You really did seem like the most serious person in the world, and you were all, in your suits and your shades just like a vampire was supposed to be, and all of that. And you…” Dan turned on his side and Laurie thought how beautiful he was, soft and sweet and kind, and he could not stop touching Dan’s chest.

“You were sad,” Dan said. “You never ever laughed.”

“I laughed,” Laurie said.

“No,” Dan said, “you didn’t. Not ever. You seemed to be not just serious, but sad. And so I just, I don’t know, I thought I was going to make you notice me. I was going to get past that surface.”

“You were going to fuck with me.”

“Oh, I was most definitely going to fuck with you. And, what’s more, I was pretty sure you enjoyed it.”

“Were you now?”

“Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“I’ll tell you what I enjoy,” Laurie said, pulling Dan to him and kissing him on the mouth so hard he bit him. Dan moaned, his fingernails in Laurie’s back drew blood, and neither of them noticed it. It was just part of what happened when two blood drinkers were together.

“Laurie, I know you have to go,” Dan said, “But do you have to go right away?”

“I can’t really go at all.”

“Why not.”

“Are you serious?” Laurie suddenly looked like his old, irritated self.

“Dan, they almost killed you. That was… That almost destroyed me.”

Laurie lay on his back.

“You knew that. Underneath all of this…what is it you call me? A stick in the mud? You knew, you’ve always known how important you are to me. I can’t bear to think of them hurting you again.”

There was a knock at the door and Laurie casually said, “Come in.”

But Dan called, “Who is it?” and hit Laurie, who chuckled.

“Sunny. I was just looking for one or the both of you.”

“Is this important?” Laurie asked casually.

“Nope, just checking you were home.”

“Well, alright then. We are.” Laurie said, and Sunny walked away.

Laurie looked the very opposite of a stick in the mud now as he grinned at Dan.

“What the fuck is up with you?”

“Because it could have been Levy. Or Myron. And neither of them understands us yet, how we work. How things are different for us than… mortals.”

“You mean why we’re laying in bed naked together.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “If either one of them, but especially Levy knows, there’re going to be all sorts of questions, and I’m going to have to give all sorts of explanations and—”

Laurie pulled Dan to him and kissed him.

“Just explain that I love you.”

Dan blinked, not looking loved so much as irritated.

Laurie pulled Dan’s face to him.

“Explain that you are my little brother and blood drinkers do things with other blood drinkers that mortals usually do not, that our feelings can be stronger, and we express them differently and that,” Laurie kissed him quickly, “I,” Laurie kissed him again, “love you.”

Laurie shoved Dan, very much as if he were a little brother.

“Even if you are the most irritating person I’ve ever known.”

“Is Loreal going to understand?” Dan said.

“What?”

“I’m serious, Laurie. You love her so much and you have wanted a woman who understands you. Is she going to understand this or what? Cause…I’m not human anymore, not really. I don’t have human feelings. When I was human I would never have done this, and now that we are what we are, I have no problem with you having a wife and going to her and us never having this again. And I don’t have a problem if we’re lovers forever, and you’re still my brother, and that’s the way I feel about you. But… is she going to get it?”

“She’s the kind of girl, the kind of woman, who gets things.”

“But should she have to?”

“Dan, look,” Laurie said, tenderly, holding his face. “Baby, look, you and me need time together, lots of time, to unfuck up the way we’ve been silly with each other. I want to stay in this bed with you all day. I want us to sleep together tonight and the next, and whatever happens happens. But right now this is what has to happen. Because we love each other. You love me, right?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Dan said. “You don’t even have to ask that.”

“Alright then,” said Laurie, “Then, let’s just work through this. One hour at a time.”